Hi Robert,
I have an idea for a system administration tool as well. Actually I
started developing a GLSA update manager which would have a web based
front end and eventually came up with the idea of a Gentoo styled
enterprise distribution which would have a web based administration tool.
Since I don't want to reinvent the wheel, I would use Gentoo as the base
system and this would allow the flexibility of Gentoo Linux and would
then write an ebuild to distribute my web based management tool with the
relevant packages.
Let me know if you are interested in something like this so I can
discuss the idea with you further.
Devraj
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Robert Larson wrote:
On Monday 13 June 2005 09:18 pm, Devraj Mukherjee wrote:
Is there an ebuild that builds like a LAMP architecture for most popular
applications on a Gentoo system?
I can see quite a bit of use for something like this, and I have been
wondering about something like this too. I have also been thinking a lot
lately about the possibility of Gentoo portage managing packages across
multiple hosts.
With this metapackage idea, it seems to me that it would be a pretty
incredible thing if I could emerge meta-packages where I might answer some
simple questions, such as this:
# emerge -meta lamp
Would you like:
A. MySQL
B. PostgreSQL
Or, I don't know, even a set of configuration files set in place to anwer
these questions for us. The USE variable seems to answer these questions,
but it may be a bit limited for the concept of metapackages.
I mention all of this because I have been working for months on implementing
an infrastructure such as the kind described on infrastructures.org. It
would be nice to be able to build a set of packages, on only a few terms.
Even further it would be even more productive to be able to build across
multiple hosts, multiple architectures, etc. We are moving into a day where
embedded systems are more available, imagine having 200 embedded controllers
you have Gentoo installed on, and you can execute one emerge command across
all of them (of course, tested in a non-production environment first...).
Or, likewise, modify the USE flags on all of them with a single push of
make.conf.
A few example metapackages might be:
ids: emerges snort, can run multiple sensors, can tie logging mechanisms into
external programs that may also be included (ie: prelude, and sguil for both
real-time and post analisys).
prelude: Network wide logging(securely), hids, nids, and may pull logs and
alerts from nagios, samhain, snort, etc. and provide a web frontend
authserver: ldap, sasl, heimdal, pam, samba-tng, squid, etc....
avgateway: clamav, pop3vscan, squid, frox, etc...
gentoo-postinstall-default: vixie-cron, metalog, sudo, vim, (if needed:
reiserfs, etc)...
windowing: xorg, gnome, kde, ati, etc.
themes: gentoo-artwork, kde-themes, icons, etc..
stage1: downloads tar, unpacks it, bootstraps, emerges system, etc. - I like
this one, imagine deploying 100 identical (but, multiplatform) workstations,
using one gentoo configuration.
Assuming that portage could work across multiple machines, we can define the
set of packages, the ways that these sets of packages can interconnect,
define which hosts, and define the incompatiblities, then it would not be too
daunting a task to supply the admin with a set of options that they can use
to implement an entire strategy in a day. As well, there would be use to me,
if I wanted to create my own metapackages through something similar to that
of the Gentoo portage.
I like the idea of one host to manage them all, and I love the idea of
stateful configuration. I also love what portage has done to computing (not
excluding "ports"), and I will obsess until I can see it all together.
Just a few thoughts; I wanted to hear others. Sorry for the lengthy post.
Robert Larson
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